Detective Kitty O'Day (1944) User Reviews

Enjoyable "B" Picture

[mtrons · 6/10 · 16 May 2011]

I just finished watching this movie on a compilation DVD distributed by Retromedia Entertainment - available for rental on Netflix. Quite entertaining with a nice performance by the handsome Peter Cookson, but the true bright spot was the performance by Jean Parker. The film was marred by some silly slapstick and weak humor - but still worth watching.

The copy of the film was in fairly good condition overall, but had some breaks in continuity. I look forward to seeing more films starring Miss Parker.

This sort of film is of interest to film history buffs as a typical product of one the lesser known Hollywood studios - Monogram Pictures.

Nancy Drew gets older

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 21 September 2013]

Detective Kitty O'Day played by Jean Parker in the first of two films she did as Kitty O'Day who with her reluctant boyfriend Peter Cookson goes around solving crimes and generally getting into all kinds of mischief. If I didn't know any better I'd swear I was watching Bonita Granville and Frankie Thomas in one of the Warner Brothers Nancy Drew series albeit a bit older.

Parker is working for a millionaire who winds up dead with a widow who was already stepping out with Douglas Fowley. Veda Ann Borg was the merry widow and she's the main reason to see this as she usually is the main reason to see any film she's in.

Bodies start piling up in this 'mystery' until it is fairly obvious who could have done it.

One more film and there was no more demand for Kitty O'Day.

Barely funny Poverty Row comedy mystery is completely sunk by a long drawn out (and pointless) middle section

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 11 August 2005]

Detective Kitty O'Day is the sort of movie that perfectly explains why some low rung movie studios were said to be Poverty Row, its almost as cheap a movie as you can get and still have film in the camera.

The plot concerns a theft of securities. Johnny Jones brings Mr Wentworth some securities. He's the boyfriend of Wentworth's secretary, Kitty O'Day. When Wentworth heads home he asks that Kitty meet him there so he can make last minute arrangements before a trip. On the way out Kitty and Johnny get into a fight and Kitty heads to Wentworth's in a huff. When Kitty gets there she is let into the home by the butler and told that there is something wrong with the power. Not long after that Wentworth turns up dead, the securities are found to be missing and the house fills with police and suspects.

Done on the cheap, most of the sets are just walls with a minimal amount of furniture. The rooms they represent seem unnecessarily large and empty. The furniture is cheap and well worn. When Kitty and her boyfriend follow the wife of the dead man and her lover the film shifts to a "ritzy" apartment building. Actually the place looks like a dive and not the place a rich woman would live in.

Its here that the film really shows its cheapness in all departments as the plot pretty much stops as Kitty and beau are chased from room to room and around the outside of the building. It's suppose to be a laugh riot as they are forced to wear stupid clothes as disguises while they run back and forth, but its not. It's just not funny nor does it advance the plot much other than to allow the suspect pool to diminish. It's a 20 or 25 minute long set piece that serves no purpose other than keeping the movie in a few easily redecorated sets while the time runs off the clock. It completely kills the film.

I can't recommend this movie much. Sure it's amusing at times, the pair of police detectives do manage to work miracles with poor material, but its still nothing that should be sought out. The ideal place for this would be the late show at 3 am when you have acute insomnia and want to see something other than another infomercial. It's a poverty stricken Poverty Row cheapie.

Jean Parker shines as a comedienne

[jimjo1216 · 25 September 2013]

I mostly know Jean Parker from movies of the early 1930s (LITTLE WOMEN springs to mind) and I mostly associate her with teary-eyed victims of tragedy or sweet young romantic interests. Bland supporting roles in mostly dramatic pictures. The sweet daughter, the poor sister, the hometown sweetheart. DETECTIVE KITTY O'DAY (1944) showcases Parker as a comedienne. She goes for broke in the name of comedy and I was impressed. Jean Parker is the whole show.

Made for B-level Monogram Pictures, DETECTIVE KITTY O'DAY is an inconsequential hour-long comedy-mystery programmer. There are no big names in the cast. The most recognizable actor after Parker is Edward Gargan, in the dumb police sidekick role he'd played countless times at the major studios. Veda Ann Borg lends sex appeal to the supporting cast.

Kitty O'Day (Jean Parker) is a secretary who drags her boyfriend Johnny (Peter Cookson) around as she tries to solve her boss's murder. Every time the police run into the amateur sleuths a dead body turns up.

Parker, pretty as always, handles the comedy with aplomb. Kitty O'Day is plucky and bright, in her own silly screwball way. She delivers zingers with a smile, uses accents and props, faints, crawls on the ground, and even wears a disguise. With Johnny along for the ride, the investigation is full of slip-ups, goofs, and misunderstandings, but Kitty somehow seems to land on the right track.

For the sake of comedy the script allows for some lapses in logic, but they are easily overlooked. The film is enjoyable silliness from start to finish. Strictly a low-budget, small-time affair, but Jean Parker is fun to watch at the center of it all. It's neat seeing a different side to the actress a decade after the 1930s roles I know best.

forgettable comedy/mystery

[cherold · 5/10 · 13 January 2011]

After watching the surprisingly enjoyable "The Adventures of Kitty O'Day" I hunted down the movie it was a sequel to, "Detective Kitty O'Day." While I thought the first movie was pretty funny, this one seemed much weaker. It surprises me that this movie generated a sequel (and that the second, better movie ended the series).

I won't say this movie is dumber than the other one; they're both pretty dumb. And I wouldn't say Jean Parker was any less charming in this one; she's still fun and lively as she blithely goes from one disaster to the next. But it's just not as funny a movie, and even at an hour long it felt like it dragged.

Very amusing comedy-mystery

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 20 March 2012]

"Detective Kitty O'Day" is not a great mystery (the murderer is fairly easy to spot after a point, especially when the other suspects keep getting bumped off!), but it doesn't need to be: it's the comedy that primarily carries this picture, and it carries it well. The dialogue is snappy and the pacing is breezy. More specifically, just about every line uttered by the clueless but good natured cop played by Ed Gargan is funny to very funny ("I wanted to get you out of that hot closet before you sophisticated!"). Jean Parker is absolutely adorable as the title character: beautiful, spunky, brave, and deeply devoted to her boyfriend; near the end, she's not afraid to get physical with the bad guys using her handbag as a weapon! The "official" DVD print of the movie, included in a "Poverty Row" collection with two others, has a couple of bad splices, but they don't detract much. *** out of 4.

Monogrammed mystery

[MikeMagi · 4/10 · 3 October 2013]

If you weren't around when Monogram and Producers Releasing Corporation were churning out grade Z pictures for third-rate movie houses, this is the perfect introduction to them. You have flimsy sets, even flimsier dialog, co-stars Jean Parker and Peter Cookson trying against insurmountable odds to rival Myrna Loy and William Powell and a yarn about a murdered stockbroker that makes no sense whatsoever. Even better, you have the talent of William "One Shot" Beaudine,a director prized by poverty row studios because he invariably found the first take he took so brilliant, there was no need to waste money shooting another. As a side-trip into cinema history, Kitty O'Day is of interest. As a movie, that's another story. And a pretty lame one.

Way Above Average In All Regards

[Handlinghandel · 7/10 · 4 June 2007]

I love seeing Monogram movies. They don't have a pristine look. They look down and dirty -- which they were.

It seems as if someone must have said, "Get me Jean Arthur!" and it was misunderstood. Parker plays a flighty girl along the lines of many an Arthur role. She also resembles the sublime Gracie Allen at times.

But Parker was a fine actress in her own right. She shoulders this picture and carries it to great success.

Veda Ann Borg is also on-hand for some cheesecake. But it's Parker's movie all the way.

(The sequel, "The Adventures of Kitty O'Dea," is a retread of the same movie. It's pleasant enough but breaks not ground at all.)

Total Slapstick

[howdymax · 3/10 · 22 September 2013]

I agree with a previous reviewer when he said he loves the old Monogram programmers. I do too. In fact, I took the time to track down and visit the address of the studio at the wrong end of Sunset Blvd some years ago. (The studio is now a PBS station and the offices are a take out chicken joint). But this attempt at putting together yet another amateur detective couple fizzled badly. Cross Torchy Blaine with The Mad Miss Manton, cut the budget in half, and give it to Bill "One Shot" Beaudine to direct, and there you are. The story isn't bad, but there are endless scenes of the the two sleuths creeping around dark rooms, tripping over furniture, and arguing with the dummy cops. We've seen it all before, and we've seen it done better.

Worth watching

[ilprofessore-1 · 7/10 · 11 February 2019]

This silly Monogram quickie directed by Wm. Beaudine and co-written by Tim Ryan who plays the chief detective is worth watching for Ryan's expert comic performance as well as the charming work of the underrated Jean Parker. Ryan resembled Bill Demarest but never achieved the same success. He had been married to Irene Ryan, Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies. They started in vaudeville doing a Dumb Dora act which was said to have influenced Burns and Allen.

Murder ain't easy, especially if dumb detectives can solve it in record time.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 8 April 2014]

What would you do if you discovered your boss dead, murdered in their own shower? Most people would simply file for unemployment, but not Kitty O'Day (Jean Parker), the nosy secretary who seems to be around every time a new corpse is discovered, even when she is found hiding in the tub with one whom she had no idea that they were there. Along with co-worker Peter Cookson, she gets in over her head searching for the killer, annoying the heck out of the police detectives who make the Keystone cops look like Serpico.

A good majority of the film is spent on slapstick, putting Parker, Cookson and one of the dumb detectives out on a skyscraper window ledge. Minus this footage and other attempts at comedic interludes, the film would run about 40 minutes. Perennial tough girl Veda Ann Borg adds some spark as the boss's cheating wife, but the majority of the film is so ridiculously structured that even at just over an hour, it is a mystery how the viewer didn't fall asleep, tune out or hit the fast forward button.

Sublimely silly slapdash mystery-comedy

[csteidler · 8/10 · 20 June 2014]

Jean Parker is fast-talking Kitty O'Day, a spunky secretary who sets out to solve a murder. Peter Cookson tries to keep up as Johnny Jones, the boyfriend who assists in her investigation. Together they track a murderer….but they have a couple of problems: 1) more dead bodies keep turning up, and 2) the cops think they did it.

Tim Ryan, who co-wrote the script, has many of the funniest lines as wise-cracking police detective Clancy. (Finding Kitty and Johnny in a room with yet another dead body: ""The butler! Every time I see you with somebody, they're dead.") Edward Gargan is also fun as the usual dumb assistant cop who goes through the picture saying "Yes, Chief." B movie regulars Douglas Fowley and Veda Ann Borg are also along for the ride.

The plot isn't much, and the situations are all pretty familiar….hiding behind apartment furniture, sneaking out on a window ledge, stumbling over dead bodies in the dark—all the usual dangers and dilemmas are here.

However, it's all done in such good humor! It looks like they slapped together a few sets, glanced through the script, and shot it with no rehearsal, just kind of seeing how it would turn out—and having a great time. It's sloppy and goofy—but somehow it clicks in a way few of these B comedies manage to do.

The enthusiastic cast is apparently the key. Led by Parker, the whole gang roar through the proceedings with great gusto. It won't make you think, but it's lots of fun.

Detective Kitty O Day

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 23 February 2023]

After her boss is murdered, secretary and aspiring detective Kitty O'Day sees a chance to put her skills to the test to the annoyance of the investigating police officer Inspector Clancy. When Clancy won't properly investigate the dead man's widow, O'Day takes it upon herself to unmask the killer - with the reluctant assistance of her boyfriend Johnny Jones.

An entertaining zany comedy mystery with an emphasis on comedy. There's plenty of wisecracks and funny one liners. It's nothing new, yet it's brimming with energy, thanks to the actors, especially the inquisitive Jean Parker. It's good fun. And short and sweet.

Familiar stuff from Monogram

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 24 September 2015]

In the 1930s and 40s, tons of mostly low-budget B-detective films were made by various studios. Some featured better writing and production values (such as Fox's Charlie Chan and Columbia's Boston Blackie) but most were less prestigious productions with little to distinguish them. The latter is definitely the case with Monogram's "Detective Kitty O'Day". It's very typical of these detective films--with a know-it-all lead and super-stupid cops. The only thing that unusual is having a female lead, though there were a few other lady detective films (such as Torchy Blaine and Nancy Drew). As far as the production goes, Kitty was a VERY obnoxious character--much more than usual! She talked non- stop, butted into the police investigation and was difficult to like. Not one of the better films in the genre--with little to distinguish it due to pedestrian writing, acting and direction.

An old movie with some problem with modern audience

[stefanozucchelli · 5/10 · 10 April 2022]

Decent movie but it feels the weight of the years in which it was filmed. Several scenes that are involuntarily comical and an abundant dose of paternalistic machismo.

classiest

[Cristi_Ciopron · 10/10 · 14 January 2016]

A comedy with Jean Parker, Veda Ann Borg, Tim Ryan (who has been a worthy scriptwriter and didn't really have the look of an actor), E. Gargan as the humbled, submissive copper, Fowley as the lover of the widow: one of Beaudine's best hours ever, a smart movie, deliciously played, sampling loveliest scenes comes across as useless, since this comedy charms in its entirety. Jean offers an awesomely funny role, as she's irresistibly joyful, wholesome and dynamic.

It's also the movie where Kitty O'Day starts her solving mysteries; she's an irresistible, lovely person.

The audiences are teased with an undressing scene.

Beaudine could be proud of this movie. It's better than 'Midnight Manhunt', and way sexier, classier and lovelier.

Jean was perhaps the best actress from her league, and here she seemed pleased with her role.

Jean and Veda Ann both have made movies with Sekely, and both have been in movies with Carradine.

It's great for what it is

[glovell-39163 · 8/10 · 29 December 2023]

The other reviews I've read are too harsh. There are far worse movies rated way higher.

This movie succeeds in being light, funny, and entertaining with a dash of mystery. If you were expecting a gritty film noir or a complex mystery from a B-movie titled "Detective Kitty O'Day" then you watched the wrong movie. That's on you.

It's purposefully slapstick and goofy. The cops are completely useless. The boyfriend keeps threatening to walk out until Kitty ropes him back into her antics again. It's great.

I can't think of many other films of the era with a female detective headliner, so in that way it is ahead of its time. The film also reflects the sexism of the time, as they all treat her as hysterical, which makes sense as it was made in the 1940s. That said, there is a nice moment where Kitty's boyfriend sticks up for her.

It was a fun hour spent for me and I didn't feel like my time was wasted.

Only if you have nothing else to do

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8 February 2023]

William Beaudine shined during the silent era, but after the talkies period rose, he rapidly sunk into B and Z grade, bringing though interesting lousy material, such as BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA or JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN 'S DAUGHTER. Some of those features are laughable but rarely really boring, unlike this one. It is a mystery thriller, as there were millions of them during the thirties and forties, before the Tv industry "stole" this kind of schemes. If you are a gem searcher, it's Ok, agreeable, but I doubt there are many audiences for this film. The directing is what you expect, but the story is common at a scale you can also imagine. That's not the William Beaudine's movie that I would recommend in first.